Dental bridge.



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C. E. GROMBIE.

DENTAL BRIDGE.

APPLICATION rum) FEB. 1, 1908.

898,559, Patented Sept. 15, 1908.

' 75 Inventor:

/6 By his Attorneys: 613% %4 CHARLES E. GROMBIE, OF MINNEAPOLIS,MINNESOTA.

DENTAL BRIDGE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Sept. 15, 1908.

Application filed February 1, 1908. Serial No. 413,736.

T 0 all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, CHARLES E. CROMBIE, a citizen of the United States,residing at Minneapolis, in the county of Hennepin and State ofMinnesota, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in DentalBridges; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, andexact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilledin the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

lWIy invention.is in the art of artificial teeth and has for its objectto provide a simple and efiicient improvement in bridge construction,the primary purpose thereof being to reduce the cost of such work byvery great reduction or elimination of the gold hitherto necessarilyused. I

To the above ends the invention consists of the novel devices andcombinations of devices hereinafter described and defined in the claims.

In the accompanying drawings which illustrate the invention, likecharacters indicate like parts throughout the several views.

Referring to the drawings, Figure l is a plan view, Fig. 2 an out sideelevation, and Fig. 3 an inside elevation, showing a bridge designed inaccordance with my invention and attached to a wisdom tooth and secondbi-cuspid, and supporting two artificial teeth in the space where teethare out. Fig. 4 is a section on the line 90 r of Fig. 1. Fig. 5 is aplan view showing two crowns connected by a crooked or fluted metalbridge reinforcement; and Fig. 6 is a fragmentary detail in elevation,showing a section of a metallic bridge reinforcement.

In the drawings, the numeral 1 indicates the natural teeth and thenumeral 2 indicates two artificial teeth. These artificial teeth 2 areor may be of the usual porcelain construction having an integral gumportion 3 and customary projecting anchoring pins 4.

The numerals 5 and 6 indicate customary gold crowns, which, as shown,are applied respectively to a wisdom tooth and to a bicuspid. Incarrying out my invention I connect these two crowns by a metallicbridge reinforcement of gold, German silver, brass or any other suitablemetal, and embed the same in rubber or other cementitious material whichis used to form the body of the bridge, and to which the artificialteeth are directly secured. This metal reinforcement is preferablyformed by a piece of quite stiff wire 7 bent zig zag or into flutedform, as

shown in the drawings. The ends of this wire are soldered to the crowns,and the rubber, indicated at 8, is applied around the same and theartificial teeth are secured to the said rubber body 8 with its headedprojections 4 embedded therein. Preferably the wire 7 has a roughexterior, as shown in Fig. 6, so that the rubber will more firmly adherethereto. This embedded metal bridge reinforcement makes the bridge verystrong and, as is obvious, is of very small cost.

Also it very greatly reduces the amount of work required to apply abridge. In fact, this invention makes possible high grade work at smallcost.

What I claim is:

1. In a dental bridge structure, the combination with lateral spacedcrowns, of a metal bridge reinforcement in the form of a crooked wiresecured at its ends to said crowns, a body of rubber or cementitiousmaterial embedding the said reinforcing wire, and one or more artificialteeth secured to said cementitious body, substantially as described.

2. In a dental bridge structure, the combination with laterally spacedcrowns, of a metal bridge reinforcement in the form of a crooked wiresecured at its ends to said crowns, a body of rubber or cementitiousmaterial embedding the said reinforcing wire, and one or more artificialteeth secured to said cementitious body and having metallic projectionsembedded therein, substantially as described.

In testimony whereof I afliX my signature in presence of two witnesses.

CHARLES E. CROMBIE.

Witnesses:

H. D. KILGORE, MALIE Horn.

